Tailoring the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) for Space Launch Range Support D. Davis1 NOAA Research −Forecast Systems Laboratory, Boulder, Co T. Wilfong Lockheed Martin Mission Systems, Santa Maria, Ca B. Shaw NOAA Research −Forecast Systems Laboratory, Boulder, Co K. Winters 45th Weather Squadron, Patrick AFB, Fl W. Schmeiser 30th Weather Squadron, Vandenberg AFB, Ca 1 . INTRODUCTION processing, and day−of−launch operations for launches by the Department of Defense, National Aeronautics Access to space is generally taken for granted as part and Space Administration (NASA), and commercial of our modern society. In the United States, the two launch customers. primary launch locations are The Western Range (WR) at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California and the In the mid 1990s, Space Command undertook an effort Eastern Range (ER) at Cape Canaveral Air Force to modernize the two ranges. The Range Station and Kennedy Space Center (KSC). The Air Standardization and Automation (RSA) program is Force Space Command has the responsibility to designed to improve efficiency and reduce costs by operate the ER and WR, providing common services providing more automated, standard systems to the and ensuring public safety. In addition to space space launch ranges. As part of this modernization launches, the ER and WR also serve as test ranges for effort, the Mission Systems division of Lockheed Martin ballistic missile and other tests. Figure 1 shows the is completing development and delivery of the extent of the ranges. infrastructure, instrumentation, communication and software applications necessary to operate the ranges. It is beyond the scope of this paper to describe the details of the overall architecture being implemented by Highly Offshore test area Inclined RSA. Here, we focus on the integration of range Orbits forecasting functionality into the National Weather Vandenberg AFB Eastern Services’ (NWS) Advanced Weather Interactive CCAS/KSC Range Equatorial Processing System (AWIPS) which address the Ballistic Orbits Missiles Antigua weather launch requirements and instrumentation used Pt. Mugu Kaena Point Ballistic to collect the required data, and method of Missiles dissemination of that information to the launch Kwajalein directors. Western Polar Range Orbits Ascension 2. WEATHER SUBSYSTEM OVERVIEW

Figure 1. The Eastern Range and Western Range cover large areas The RSA weather subsystem is designed to assimilate necessary to accommodate equatorial, high inclination and polar orbits data from various types of local instrumentation as well as ballistic missile and other tests such as aircraft flights in the offshore corridor off the west coast. including instrumented towers, radar wind profilers, sodars, various lightning detection systems, and the The Air Force provides comprehensive operational balloon based sounding systems. As shown in Figure meteorological services to the Eastern and Western 2, the infrastructure is implemented on two separate Ranges. These services include weather support for local area networks (LANs) . The Operations Control personnel and resource protection, pre−launch ground Center (OCC) LAN interfaces to all local instrumentation and is used to acquire, quality control, 1Corresponding author’s address: Darien Davis, and archive local data, as well as to distribute data and 325 Broadway decision products. The AWIPS LAN is implemented in M/S R/E/FS4 much the same way as most NWS installations and Boulder, Co 80305; uses the new Linux based architecture. Local data e−mail:[email protected] acquired by servers on the OCC LAN are then formatted and sent to the AWIPS LAN where they are an active airfield where contracted observers monitor combined with NOAAPORT and NEXRAD data the weather, and forecasters from CCAFS provide flight acquired directly by the AWIPS. forecasts for aircrews. AWIPS File server NOAA Port and Model Server Firewall (Linux)

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Figure 2. The weather support subsystem consists of local instrumentation, communication and the automatic data processing equipment required to acquire and process data. The AWIPS LAN is implemented in the same manner as other National systems to maintain compatibility.

The AWIPS LAN also supports a mesoscale model server used to run a local area analysis and forecast model.

3. FORECASTING REQUIREMENTS AT THE RANGES

3.1 Eastern Range Figure 3. Warning and advisory areas covered by the 45 WS range Weather has a significant impact on launch and daily weather operations. operations at the Eastern Range NASA’s KSC. Weather contributed to 34% of total launch scrubs and To provide the high−quality weather support required 51% of launch delays from 1 October 1988 to 25 Aug for launch and daily operations, the 45 WS uses 2000 (Boyd et al.2002). The cost of a launch scrub weather systems unique from other USAF weather varies from $150,000 to over $1,000,000 depending units. A large network of weather towers, wind upon the launch vehicle. Other impacts include profilers, lightning sensors and field mills (instruments possible delays in future launch schedules, and the which measure the electric field at the surface and human element of repeated stressful launch attempts. detect electric discharges) are part of the range weather network. Ideally, these data should be The USAF’s 45th Weather Squadron (45 WS) evaluates integrated into one system at Range Weather and forecasts weather operationally for the ER and Operations to allow weather personnel to evaluate the KSC. This support includes resource protection, pre− large amounts of data available. Currently, the 45 WS launch ground processing, and day−of−launch uses a derivative of the Man computer Interactive Data operations for up to 40 launches per year by the Access System (McIDAS) to accomplish this task. With Department of Defense, NASA, and commercial launch the delivery of Lockheed−Martin’s Range customers. The launch vehicles currently supported Standardization and Automation Weather Product in include the Titan, Atlas, Delta, Athena, and Pegasus 2003, Forecast Systems Lab’s AWIPS will integrate the rockets; the Space Shuttle; and the Trident ballistic complete complement of data available on the range as missiles. well as data available on the NOAAPort Receive System. In addition to launch operations, the 45 WS provides weather support to daily operations at Cape Canaveral 3.2 Western Range Air Force Station (CCAFS), KSC, Patrick AFB, and the E−8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System Vandenberg Air Force Base has a unique geographic (JSTARS) unit in Melbourne, Florida. Weather warnings location that provides America with the capability to and advisories are issued for these areas (also shown launch satellites into polar orbit while the threat of in Figure 3) by the forecaster at Range Weather over−flying population centers is minimized. This Operations at CCAFS. Furthermore, Patrick AFB has mission, crucial to national security as well as commercial interests such as communications, land channeling effect. These localized wind perturbations resource surveillance, and space research, is can effect toxic hazard forecasts and launch dependent upon the successful launch of a wide variety operations. of spacelift boosters including Delta, Titan, Atlas, 3.2.2 Use of AWIPS at the 30th Weather Squadron Pegasus, Taurus and Minotaur. Meteorological forecasting responsibility for these missions falls under To help mitigate these effects, the weather support the purview of the USAF 30th Weather Squadron (30 structure at the Western Range is in the midst of a WS), based at Vandenberg. significant upgrade. Upon completion, this upgrade will provide tower−mounted sonic anemometers, The Air Force relies on the 30 WS to provide temperature/humidity sets, radiometers, and soil meteorological monitoring on "the window to the moisture sensors, 915 MHz Boundary Layer Wind Pacific" as well as operational testing of the Minuteman Profilers, Mini−SODARs, a new GPS balloon tracking and Peacekeeper ICBM programs including the system and a 50 MHz Doppler Radar Wind Profiler. National Missile Defense program. The 30 WS The upgrade also includes version 5.1.2 of AWIPS analyzes and forecasts operational weather for the software. Western Range and Vandenberg Air Force Base. Forecasters provide resource protection, pre−launch, The 30 WS is the only Air Force weather squadron that day−of−launch, and post−launch operations for up to currently uses AWIPS for spacelift range support. twenty scientific, DoD and commercial launches per AWIPS integrates GOES satellite imagery, forecast year, in addition to providing air operations support for models and field observations. The 30 WS’s upgrade a variety of military aircraft. Weather is a critical part of version of AWIPS is enhanced by ingest of in situ data every operation, affecting pre−launch and ground and a high−resolution mesoscale model for forecasting. operations as well as day−of−launch and post−launch functions. Since 1988, approximately 34.8% of all FSL developed a special version of MM5 for launch missions at the Western Range were scrubbed Vandenberg. This model is routinely run in 4 km and due to weather. 16 km resolutions. Model outputs will be customized to provide products that enhance forecast support at 3.2.1 Weather’s Role in Western Range Operations the Western Range. Upon final upgrade delivery, the mesoscale model will run on AWIPS locally, with a 24− Vandenberg’s space flight activities involve extremely hr run performed every 6 hrs. The model run currently expensive and environmentally sensitive systems. takes approximately 5.5 hrs to complete. However the Complex, weather sensitive requirements for ground upgraded version decreases processing time to a few processing, launch and recovery operations are hours and increases model resolution to 1 km. common. Downrange and remote sensing sites also have environmentally sensitive systems incurring AWIPS is also used to display the Aviation Model stringent weather−related constraints. A variety of (AVN) and Nested Grid Model (NGM) weather forecast weather parameters affect launch operations. models twice per day. The Medium Range Forecast Lightning, strong winds, temperatures, precipitation and Model (MRF) is available based only on 00Z data. even sea state conditions have profound effects on Western Range forecasters do not reanalyze the launch operations. models; however, they do have the capability to display model features using AWIPS graphics. AWIPS Vandenberg Air Force Base, located in Santa Barbara enhances the forecasters ability to initialize and analyze County, California, is the third largest Air Force base in forecast models through graphics overlay capability. the nation, encompassing more than 98,400 acres. The proximity of the base to the Pacific Ocean plays a Current AWIPS graphics capabilities are of great value major role in Vandenberg’s weather. Topography also to the Western Range forecaster. RSA additions will has a significant effect because of abrupt changes in further enhance those capabilities and incorporate the elevation over short distances. The Pacific Ocean and local mesoscale model. These capabilities provide a mountainous elevations to over 2,000 ft make new integrated approach to the forecast challenge at meteorological support to mission operations a the Western Range. challenge. 4. AWIPS Enhancements Wind plays a key role in Western Range operations and launch drift winds are of concern both to launch 4.1 System Description agencies and range safety. The winds over this large complex can vary greatly in direction and speed The National Weather Service has spent many years depending on location. The mountainous terrain creating a forecasting tool for weather forecast offices surrounding the base significantly affects wind direction during its modernization efforts. The RSA project is and speed, especially in the winter and spring. effectively leveraging this work for use at the ranges. Westerly winds tend to funnel through coastal valleys Working with FSL, the RSA project is incorporating site and canyons and increase in speed due to the specific data and visualizations into general purpose functions that can be used by all weather forecasting as range rings. These include rings with a user defined offices within the NWS in future versions of AWIPS. radius centered on a launch pad as well as pre−defined rings centered over areas the 45 WS monitors for The RSA AWIPS is using Linux PC and NFS servers. weather warnings and advisories. Range rings are Mimicking the NWS’ proposed hardware upgrades, the required to assist Launch Weather Officer’s (LWO) in RSA is implementing high−end IBM IntelliStation PCs evaluating Launch Commit Criteria (LCC) and assist for data display with an IBM eServer series 350 forecasters when determining weather warnings and network file server for data ingest, decoding, and advisories for affected areas (Figure 3). storage. Because of the enhanced upper air data sets, additions 4.2 Data were made to the display system to handle these dense data. First, a "variable Vs height" display was The RSA weather product will use the data from added to the volume browser, allowing inspection of NOAAPORT available over satellite broadcast. Data data on the vertical scale and overlay of these data are available on four channels −−the NWSTG data, sets. Additional sources were added to the volume GOES−East, GOES−West, and the OCONUS data set browser menu to account for the rawinsonde and (including a 4 satellite composite over the northern profiler data available from the local range data sets. hemisphere). Information on the abort landing sites will Care was taken to include re−rendering when zooming be available on the RSA system. on the vertical scales.

The RSA highly depends on vertical data sets. Two new profiler perspectives have been introduced. RTAMPS balloons, Mini−Sodars, 915 MHz profilers, 50 These allow the user to inspect all mini−sodars or MHz profilers are available at each range. The profilers at the same time on a mapped scale. standard AWIPS system can ingest and display local data at every office, but the data sets are limited to The RSA requires a wind convergence contour. The surface "mesonet" type data. FSL enhanced the local decision was made to include an on demand contour of data ingest for RSA by creating an avenue to ingest any point data set on any scale. Future upgrades will and display profiler and rawinsonde data. move this functionality into the volume browser which will allow any data type to be contoured. In addition, the ranges have a dense network of user towers with surface and 54ft instrumentation. Additional Launch briefings and inter−range communications use work was needed to enhance the surface ingest to a closed circuit TV to relay information within the base. incorporate the second level of data for storage. To incorporate this function, an editing tool has been added to allow annotations and weather symbols to Future work will focus on the lightning data available at build briefing charts for transmission to the users. The the ranges. In particular, the eastern range at Cape weather system must have the capability to allow the Canaveral has four types of lightning detection LWO to create and display a briefing which includes available. These are weather information from NOAAPORT, local National lightning product available on NOAAPORT information such as upper air data from locally Field Mills launched balloons, and data from the network of LDAR instruments across the range. Also included in the Local Lightning briefing are slides created by the LWO which display launch−critical information such as the launch forecast These data present a great challenge to add to the and status of the LCC. The LCC are a set of complex AWIPS local ingest schema. Of note, the LDAR can rules designed to ensure the vehicle does not launch have upwards of 30,000 points per minute. Adding a during hazardous weather conditions. lightning component to the AWIPS local data ingest and making these data available in a timely manner will Future additions to the display will add a 3−D lightning be especially challenging. product for the voluminous LDAR data set. This will be the first integration of the three dimensional rendering Finally, to enhance the exceptional local modeling that into AWIPS. will be available on the RSA system, Level II WSR−88D data will be added to the ingest system. Future additions also include an alert monitor which will visually or audibly notify the LWO when thresholds of 4.3 Visualization data have been exceeded.

RSA requirements added additional scales for display. 5. Local Analysis and Prediction System These included the TAL sites over northern Africa, the Marshall Islands, and the South Pacific. In addition to the standard AWIPS data server and display workstations, each of the range installations Also incorporated into AWIPS are new overlays such incorporate a data assimilation system running on a Linux cluster application server. The cluster consists of Figure 4, the anvil clouds are clearly threatening the 8 dual−processor compute nodes employing 1 GHz area, and the range rings provide a valuable tool in Intel processors. An additional dual−processor node determining if the anvil cloud is within 10 NM of the serves as a front−end processor. This server hosts the launch pad. Figure 5 provides clear evidence that Local Analysis and Prediction System (LAPS, Albers et lightning is indeed occurring from the storm producing al. 1996), coupled with the NCAR/PSU Fifth− the anvil cloud, which indicates, according to the LCC, Generation Mesoscale Model (MM5, Grell et al. 1995), that if the anvil cloud moves into the 10 NM range ring, as a local data assimilation and forecast system. This the LWO will change the Anvil Cloud LCC status to red. system, described in detail in Shaw et al. (2002), provides local analysis and forecast grids at high spatial (1.1 km grid spacing) and temporal (hourly) resolution. These gridded fields are used to support local forecasting efforts for the 0−24 h forecast period as well as provide input for atmospheric dispersion models. This system marks the first known fully− integrated implementation of a local forecast model within AWIPS for fully operational applications.

6. Using AWIPS for Evaluation of LCC

During the launch countdown, the Launch Weather Team (LWT) monitors range weather data and evaluates the LCC. The LCC are each determined to be either red if the criterion is violated or green if not. Frequent briefings on the LCC are provided to the Figure 4. AWIPS display of visible GOES−East satellite imagery with Launch Director who uses the information to make a cumulus and anvil cloud. Also included is the 10 NM range ring centered Go/No Go decision for the launch. on Shuttle pad 39A.

With the integration of the range data, the NOAAPORT weather data, ER overlays, and an alert monitor, AWIPS is a valuable tool for evaluating LCC. Many LCC include a weather data type, time (duration) since occurrence, and distance threshold from the flight path or launch pad in nautical miles (NM). The alert monitor in AWIPS can be set to alarm for these variables providing evidence to the LWO when an LCC may need to be changed from green to red or vice versa. The following are examples of using AWIPS overlays and the AWIPS alert monitor to assist the LWO in evaluating LCC. For a complete listing of the LCC, refer to Roeder et al.(1999).

6.1 Example of Using LCC Range Rings for Evaluation

Attached Anvil LCC: "Do not launch if the flight path will carry the vehicle through nontransparent parts of Figure 5. AWIPS display of NLDN NOAAPORT lightning data for same time period as Figure 4. attached anvil clouds. Do not launch if the flight path will carry the vehicle within 5 NM of nontransparent 6.2 Example of Using Alert Monitor for LCC Evaluation parts of attached anvil clouds for the first three hours after the time of the last lightning discharge that occurs Surface Electric Fields LCC Example: "Do not launch in the parent cloud or anvil cloud. Do not launch if the for 15 minutes after the absolute value of any electric flight path will carry the vehicle within 10 NM of field measurement at the surface within 5 NM of the nontransparent parts of attached anvil clouds for the flight path has been greater than 1,500 Volts/meter first 30 minutes after the time of the last lightning (V/m)" (Roeder et al. 1999). discharge that occurs in the parent cloud or anvil cloud." (Roeder et al. 1999). This LCC can easily be defined as an alert criterion in

the AWIPS alert monitor. Since the AWIPS ingests The scenario in Figures 4 and 5 clearly indicate the range local data including the field mill data, an alert need for range ring overlays when evaluating the can be defined to monitor the data (atmospheric Attached Anvil LCC. In this case, anvil clouds from electrification in V/m), the location of the data (within 5 distant thunderstorms are encroaching upon CCAFS. In NM from the launch pad), and the duration of time Roeder, W., J. Sardonia, S. Jacobs, M. Hinson, A. since the threshold was reached (15 minutes). AWIPS Guiffrida, J. Madura, 1999: Lightning Launch Commit will provide an audible and visual alert to the user when Criteria at the Eastern Range/Kennedy Space Center, the threshold value is exceeded. When the V/m 1999; 37th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting And measured falls below the threshold value and remains Exhibit, 10−15 Jan 99, Reno, NV, Paper 99−0890, 9 so for 15 minutes, AWIPS will alert the LWO again pp. indicating a possible change in the status of the LCC. NOTE: The LWO determines the change in the LCC; Shaw, B. L., S. C. Albers, J. A. McGinley, L. S. AWIPS does not. An alert from AWIPS for an LCC is Wharton, T. L. Wilfong, C.L. Crosiar, and D. E. simply a tool provided to assist the LWO in evaluation Harmes, 2002: A completely integrated, cost−effective, of the LCC. Table 1 provides the data AWIPS can local data assimilation and forecasting system to monitor to determine if LCC variables exceed a defined support space launch range operations. Interactive threshold value. Symposium on AWIPS, Orlando, FL, Amer. Meteor. Soc., (this volume). TABLE 1. Example of data AWIPS can monitor to determine if LCC variables exceed a threshold value. S R U F L a a p i t t d p e g Variable e a e l S l r r d e l A M n i i i s t r l o e D l r a s s t a Lightning X Cloud Present X X Cloud Location X X Cloud Tops X Cloud Thickness X X Field Mill v/m X Precipitation X Cloud Type X X Radar Reflectivity X Radar Bright Band X Present Convective Clouds X Liquid in Cloud X

7. REFERENCES

Albers, S., J. McGinley, D. Birkenheuer, and J. Smart,1996: The Local Analysis and Prediction System (LAPS): Analysis of clouds, precipitation, and temperature. Wea. and Forecast., 11, 273−287.

Boyd, B., D. Harms, D. Beberwyk, M. Christie, and J. Weems, 2002: Facilitating the Use of Environmental Information for Space Launch Decisions, Third Symposium on Environmental Applications, Orlando, FL, Amer. Meteor. Soc.

Grell, G. A., J. Dudhia, and D. R. Stauffer, 1995: A description of the fifth−generation Penn State NCAR Mesoscale Model (MM5). NCAR Technical Note TN− 398+STR, 122 pp.